Unless you’re one who needs to distribute HD footage, I certainly agree.

The cheapest Blu-ray media I’ve come across on a UK online store (7DayShop) is Â£15 for a 10-pack of Ridisc brand BD-R media, which works out at 6p/GB

On eBuyer UK, I came across a 1.5TB Samsung external for Â£90, which also works out at 6p/GB.

So at a first glance, BD-R seems to have finally caught up with HDD on a per GB price, although some will think twice of Ritek BD-R media.

[B]Unfortunately for the BD-R, we’ve run into multiple problems: [/B]

[ul]
[li]The BD-R media requires a Blu-ray writer before it can be used, where as the USB drive is just plug ‘n’ play. [/li][li]For carrying data on the move, the user will either need to have a BD-ROM drive where the BD media will be used or carry an external BD drive to read its discs. Again, a 1.5TB USB drive is just plug ‘n’ play.[/li][li]1.5TB on BD-R works out at 60 discs. Unless kept on a spindle, these discs would take up more physical space than a 1.5TB external drive.[/li][li]For backing up a significant amount of data, the user would need to be present to load each disc in succession. For 1.5TB of data, a 1.5TB drive can be left unattended (e.g. overnight backup), where as with BD-R, the user must be present to load & eject every one of the 60 discs.[/li][li]In the event of a disaster requiring recovery of all the data, the BD-R recovery process would involve manually loading and ejecting all 60 discs, where as the 1.5TB drive could also be left unattended for most of the restore process.[/li][li]BD-R media is not rewritable and BD-RE media costs a lot more.[/li][li]With the 1.5TB drive, you have direct access to everything. Not so with 60 BD-R discs. [/li][/ul]

Ok, some may argue that storing 1.5TB on a single disc creates a single point of failure and this indeed is very true. Well for the cost of the BD writer, consider getting a BD-ROM drive instead and use the saving towards a second 1.5TB drive. Make a periodic mirror and keep the second 1.5TB drive off-site.

On the other hand, at least BD-R media is finally coming down bit by bit. Unfortunately for Blu-ray, I would imagine that by the time the media and drives become as affordable as DVD, flash media pricing will not be far behind. Even today, you can pick up two or three 32GB USB pen drives for the price of a BD writer.

Cheapest I found in the UK was from Amazon, Â£5.99 for a 5 jewel pack of Intenso BD-R’s (CMCMAGBA3) so I bought the last two packs they had with FREE delivery so it cost me Â£11.98 for 10 BD-R’s. Worked out at Â£1.20 per disc or 0.47p/Gb.

Needless to say they have no more stock at that price and the cheapest now is about Â£13 + Â£4 shipping for a 5 jewel pack!!

I think BD may have missed its chance to become a major format already. The low production/high unit costs for the media, and extremely high cost of the burners, combined with a world wide recession has blunted adoption of the format for too long a period. As others have noted, the price per gb in hard drives has matched them, and hard drives can be more convenient.

The only use I can see for the blank bd disks on a long term basis is for blu ray video. And even that can be superceded by usb drives if the studios decide to move to them in the future.

Seems Toshiba made a hasty decision to pull the plug on HDDVD, even if it was only 15gb.
As for blu-ray movies… well, I bet in a couple of years we’ll be forced to spend our hard earned $ on
yet another (incompatible) format.

BTW, only a HDD can back up a HDD; thus, BR-Discs are useless as backups anyway.

When DVD first came out, we complained that it was similarly expensive compared to CD - even per MB (megabyte). But today, CD is now more expensive per MB than even BD, let alone DVD, due to market shifts.

If prices increase or even remain high, then we might as well reverse the digital TV transition and revert to analog-only TV broadcasting using the old NTSC standard (or put it this way, transition back to analog). And then we would fall far behind the rest of the world after just a few years.